In another stunning move from Trump’s Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, it appears the official White House response to the anonymously-penned editorial that ran in Wednesday’s New York Times was to target the paper using the well-known tactic of harassment via Trump supporters.
Tweeting Thursday morning, Sanders directed her followers to inundate the offices of the Times with phone calls demanding to know the identity of the author of the piece.
For those of you asking for the identity of the anonymous coward: pic.twitter.com/RpWYPHa6To
— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) September 6, 2018
The tweet served no purpose other than to incite harassment, as the White House would never even have been asked the identity of the author — it was purposely hidden from officials there, and no one seriously seeking to ascertain who it was would ask Sanders or anyone on the staff of the West Wing.
More importantly, however, what Sanders has done here is a clear violation of government ethics codes as set out in the Committee of the Federal Register, Title 5, Chapter 16: “Misuse of Position.” That law prohibits her from using her official capacity as the Press Secretary of the President of the United States to “coerce or induce” another person to do anything “affecting a private interest” — that interest here, of course, being the New York Times.
It’s not the first time officials inside Trump’s White House have been accused of ethics violations in connection with using their official positions to improperly influence people. Kellyanne Conway was in violation of another subset of the same chapter in the code when she publicly endorsed Ivanka Trump’s clothing brand.
This, however, is a far more serious violation, and Sanders knows that the potential harm that could be caused by calling on Trump supporters to harass a newsroom — especially in the wake of the murders at the Baltimore Sun back in June — borders on her culpability for any violence that could arise.
When the Trump administration comes to a close, Sanders’ and others’ violations of ethics rules will surely be used as guidance for future employees of the White House as a primer on how not to behave as an administration official.
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons
